It makes me slightly uneasy too. Firstly, lots of us do not use e-cigs! I hate the term electronic CIGARETTES. We have been doomed from the start by using this term. I can see how for some, it's ok - it really is a cigarette, even looks like a cigarette, and that's what people want if they are switching from cigarettes. Why is it the "cig" part makes me cringe?

Well, I have worked out why it does. It reminds me of all the discrimination, persecution, comments, legislations and hurt I endured whilst smoking. Cigarettes are analogous to PAIN - emotional pain.

I am sure that motive is in the hearts of many vapers who are trying to separate themselves from the smoking camp. We avoid pain, emotional pain, by vaping! To be a member of the most dreadfully persecuted minority in the world is frightening.

I know we vapoteurs are in at the beginning of the first technological innovation for nicotine use that is safer than smoking, so things are developing and "vaping" itself is a new term that seems to be going to stick. Yet the vapour we produce dooms us too. It looks like smoking!

Do e-cigs save lives? Or is it a claim that will make smokers snort with derision and the ignorant snigger? It's a huge claim, which in itself might make us look like exaggerating fundamentalists. It's the exact opposite of "Smoking Kills".

As a vaper, "e-cigs save lives" says more than it seems. I know how vaping has affected my health for the better. When I was a smoker I never intended to stop and, even after 50 years of smoking, I was well. And I know people much older than me (95!), who are well and healthy smokers too. Smoking does NOT kill. And we are not totally sure that e-cigs will necessarily make me live longer, but certainly, they IMPROVED my life!

Diabetes is a pretty horrible condition if left untreated. You can go blind, lose limbs and vitality, and indeed any enjoyment from life. For a diabetic "ZeroCarbs saves lives" would imply that life would be better and possibly longer if diabetics controlled their diet. Diabetes is a spin off of our very incorrect modern food intake.

"E-cigs save lives" to US means that - improving and possibly extending our potential lifespan. But what does it mean to other people, non smokers, anti-smokers, Tom Dick and Harry?

"Vaping saves lives" isn't any better really. and who the hell knows what vaping is when even on TV presenters talk about SMOKING e-cigarettes!

In Brussels, 2000 black balloons were popped to symbolise the lives lost if AM57 : medicine regulation applied to e-cigs was voted through at the ENVI meeting, as it was. But a lot of the twististics on smoking/smoking related deaths are pie in the sky guesses anyway - 2000 ? 500? who knows.

I think Tom Dick and Harry haven't a clue what we actually mean when we pop balloons representing lives lost, or have bumper stickers propounding "e-cigs save lives". They do not understand the life transforming thing vaping is as WE do. Our passion looks peculiar. They actually haven't a clue.